Here is hoping Apple loses

A headline from a news article on AppleInsider, FCC investigates Apple, AT&T for Google Voice app rejection, reminded me of my secret wish. I wish Apple would lose some anti-competitive lawsuits. I don’t wish lawsuits on anyone, but sometimes it is the only way to shake a company loose. So here are the questions of a Mac fan boy:

1) How is it legal for Apple to refuse any stand alone 3rd party browsers or mail clients for the iPhone? Would Apple redo how they allow software to be sold for OS X now that most software is downloadable? An app store for OS X maybe so they could keep any programs from duplicating their own functionality? Hmm.

2) How can a company that has it’s OS foundation built on an open-source technology, be so stinking proprietary? “Hey everyone we think you all should adapt the open-standard mini display port! It will help all the consumers.” “No, you cannot install our open-source core Unix software on any hardware but a mac.” “No we will not license out the Magsafe power adapter to other companies for their products.” Why do that? It would only make you more money, while saving the electronics of the families you say you serve. Time to release the death grip.

I must admit that on days like this I really want Apple to lose an investigation. Not so that big government tells free businesses what to do, but so they begin to act fairly and openly. Turn the corner Apple, play it straight. Open up the company, release developers, license out the technology that people need.

Comments

Dude, you can put ANYTHING you want on your iPhone. But then, Apple has no responsibility to support or warrantee it. Do you own a DVD player? In the instruction many it say that if you open it you will void your warrantee. Why don’t you complain about that? If you buy a fan it has a warning not to stick your fingers in the moving blades. Why don’t you whine about that. Nah, it’s only Apple.

If you buy the Mac OS, you cannot legally put it on any computer other than a Mac, but many thousands of people are doing just that. They’re sticking it on Windows-based computers and netbooks. Of course, you void the warrantee on the software, so it really doesn’t matter if it’s legal or not. The key point is that when you have a problem because of cheap crappy PC hardware, don’t call Apple for help.

You know, it’s really easy. If you want a BMW, buy a BMW. If you want Starbucks coffee, buy Starbucks coffee. If you want a Mac, get a Mac. NOBODY is forcing you to do anything. So please…

I am a long-time Mac user, and there is no way that I would ever switch to Windows or Linux, but I have to agree with you completely!

Apple has been doing the same things that we hated Microsoft for, and that got that company sued for anti-competitive behavior. This not only has legal ramifications, but it is also scuttling the positive public perception of Apple that has been built up over that past 10 years. This will likely hinder Apple’s future sales to the Mac faithful as well as to potential switchers.

While I agree with the premise, limiting discussion to the voice app specifically, the key question is less about apple, and more about the Carriers, or ‘Should Apple write contracts with carriers making them the exclusive arbiter of how voice traffic is accessed and managed on the iPhone?”

Your statement #1 is openning the scope beyond that of the facts you offer in evidence. It doesn’t sell stuff via an AppStore for OSX, and it has no compelling business reason to do so. Personal computers are ‘personal.’ Phones are useless if they can’t talk to another phone, so Apple/Carriers must protect that basic capability, and in the space of Google Voice, while possibly draconian, it’s definitely within their responsibility to ‘protect the network’ as the phone network is the true value of the device (it’s not called the iEverything – it’s an iPHONE.

Statement 2 is a red herring, as whether or not the underlying software is open or closed, doesn’t mean the provider of the system HAS to allow software to run on it. It just means that they can’t claim the software as theirs, and any changes they must offer back to the public.

How is Apple being anti-competitive? If you don’t like their tight vertical integration, you have plenty of other options. Apple has what? 10% PC Marketshare, 60% MP3 Marketshare and 20% Smartphone Marketshare.

Until Apple gets to around 80% share in any of those markets, there is no need for the Gov to step in since since they don’t hold any monopoly positions.

This is not a computer. It is a consumer device, with far more at stake than just the standalone computer. This is part of the same argument about ATT. So many geeks want the iPhone to do so many other things beyond what ATT can clearly handle, but then they bitch and moan about the speed of the networks. You cannot bitch about ATT’s crappy network and at the same time want tethering or something else that could kill the network.

Geeks want to play with the iPhone. Fine, jailbreak it. Otherwise, understand that Apple wants to create the best experience for the largest number of users. It does not want to make it do everything that every user wants.

“How is it legal for Apple to refuse any stand alone 3rd party browsers or mail clients for the iPhone?”

It’s Apple’s store. They can decide what they want and don’t want to carry.

That said, my complaint is that there is no other option. I think Google has this right: You have a store that carries stuff that has been vetted, but you also support a way of letting people do what they want.

You see, when you run your own store, you can sell whatever you like as long as you have a license to do so. If I open a corner bodega or small supermarket and a vendor comes to me and asks me to sell his product and I say no, then there is nothing he can do about it. If a customer comes in and asks me how come I don’t sell a certain product and I say I don’t want to sell it, I would nicely tell the customer to check another store. If the vendor or customer want to go around the neighborhood slandering me or picketing in front of my store because I failed to sell a particular product, they could do so, but it would make more sense for them to go do their business with another store when there are plenty of others around.

Apple keeps their grip on hardware to make piles of money which is what they are doing. If you ran a business you might understand why. What you should do is buy your Windows PC and forget about what Apple is doing. You can get on about the business of living your own life while the Apple crowd do their own thing. Apple holds such a tiny market share in the computer industry, they can’t sway the majority. There’s one Apple computer for every nine Windows PC and you’re losing sleep over Apple being proprietary as it’s been from the beginning. You should stick with Windows technology. It’s better for you. You seem to have little problem with PC vendors only offering one OS on their products. Why don’t you tell the government to look into that. Or why businesses only want to use Microsoft Office. It’s called cornering the desktop software business, so only one company benefits, Microsoft.

Let the government look in on Apple and they won’t be able to prove a thing. The government would be more worried if Apple and Google were in cahoots with one another.

As far as licensing out the technology, I look at it this way. If I have a recipe for some delicious brownies and I can leverage that for people to buy at my bakery and I’m making a good living by doing so, I’m not going to give the recipe out to theoretically make more money from the licensing fees. I don’t think that way. I want full control and a secret recipe. Sorry, but that’s how I would run my business. If people want the brownies that badly, they come to MY store.

Aren’t we all getting a little tired of the MS waterboys talking about being proprietary? WMA, WMV, JANUS, Plays for sure, Direct X, MS Word, Access, Windows (Whatever version), Windows CE, Windows mobile, on & on & on. MS is the most closed proprietary software company on the planet.

“I must admit that on days like this I really want Apple to lose an investigation. Not so that big government tells free businesses what to do, but so they begin to act fairly and openly. Turn the corner Apple, play it straight. Open up the company, release developers, license out the technology that people need.”

Open up the company how exactly…let everyone sponge off of there efforts? The let MS in to develop software in the 80s…look how that turned out. Please don’t spout the Xerox Parc nonsense. MS is a parasite. Google looks like they are becoming parasites also. Apple contributes to open source…how about MS? Google now seems to be doing whatever Apple does. Almost like, they are void of any vision themselves.

Much ado about nothing comes to mind, or maybe Tempest in a Teapot? What a bunch of whining cretins. Nobody is forcing you to buy an iPhone, & Steve Jobs just keeps on making my AAPL go up. And it’s going to continue to go up. Know why? Because the world knows quality and innovation when they see it. Good luck with Windows 7 and all your cheap gadgets. Hope that works out for you.

“How can a company that has it’s OS foundation built on an open-source technology, be so stinking proprietary?”

Take Google for instance, the company does use open source a lot but it won’t open-source everything. Especially vital strategic assets: the PageRank algorithm, ad technology, etc. And that’s perfectly fine, not everything has to be open-sourced.

Open-source is cool because, by sharing code, developers won’t waste time reinventing the wheel. So you need a kernel? You can use Linux. Need a browser engine? There is WebKit. Etc. WebKit is used by Palm (WebOS), Google (Chrome), Nokia (browser for S60), Adobe (Air), etc. It doesn’t mean that Adobe should open-source Photoshop.

I dislike Apple tremendously. I will never buy an apple product most likely. They keep their products so locked up you become a slave to their will. That said I would not advocate using force from the govt to MAKE that company do anything. Don’t like their practices then don’t buy their products. That is your choice. You want a gang calling themselves govt to do something to Apple that you are too weak to do yourself. As an individual you must ask the gang to stop the big company from being restrictive. Its obvious what they did to google is wrong. Why would you want to deal with a company who does that? Free will sir.

The problem with using force to get smart companies like Apple to do what YOU want is the fact that it is embarrassing for you. You are not smart enough to develop products like the iphone. Nor I. However you think it is ok for you , with lesser intelligence, to use a gang to force (govt regulation) the best and brightest of humans to do your will. You might want to read Atlas Shrugged. Good day.